


(beard) burn me up

by ladililn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Beards (Facial Hair), Canon Era, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, there's no plot in this fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 05:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16927131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladililn/pseuds/ladililn
Summary: Arthur grows a beard. Merlin may or may not like it.





	(beard) burn me up

**Author's Note:**

> I normally don't really participate in 'fests or challenges or prompts or kinkmemes or _anything_ , for precisely the reason that I sat down today to write a 300-500 word ficlet and ended up with 2000 words. They're dangerous! I don't have that kind of time in my life! There are other fics I should be working on updates for instead!
> 
> But I had to, because [arthur_pendragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon) has been so incredible in setting this up, and so welcoming to me as I've been getting back into actually _actively participating_ in the Merlin fandom of late, and so I wanted to write this as a thank you. And also because I thought "Arthur with a beard" and, well, I couldn't _not_.

“You can’t go without me,” Merlin says. “What if something happens? What if you get attacked?”

“I’m perfectly capable of self-defense, Merlin.” Merlin levels him a look, and Arthur adds, “And besides, I’ll have the knights with me.”

“None of which will do you any good against a magical threat.”

“I survived for a good twenty years without your constant hovering, you know.”

“The mystery of which continues to elude me.”

Arthur kisses Merlin on the forehead. Merlin knows it’s meant as a conciliatory gesture, which Arthur should well know only makes him more mulish.

“Stay. Gaius needs you. I’ll be back in a matter of weeks.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Think of it this way: if it’s my destiny to be a great king and bring peace and prosperity to Camelot, then I’m not going to die on this trip, am I? It’s fate.”

Merlin stares. “That’s _not_ how it works.”

Arthur, pulling a shirt over his head, quirks an eyebrow. “Then how _does_ it work?” he challenges.

Merlin opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. He pouts.

“Exactly.” Arthur yanks on his boots, for once not protesting about how he’s a _prince_ , he shouldn’t have to dress _himself_ , dammit. Merlin is still too busy pouting to get out of bed and help—and besides, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and appreciate the view. “You don’t know either.”

“Well if that’s how you think it works, I shouldn’t bother protecting you at all, should I? You can just go off and face all manner of dangers without me, if you’re so confident you’ll be _just fine_. See if I care.”

“Sure,” Arthur says agreeably, pulling on a jacket. “I can tell how much you don’t care.”

And then he’s standing by the bed, lifting Merlin’s chin to meet his gaze, expression a mix of amusement and tenderness that makes Merlin’s heart beat erratically.

“Stay safe,” Arthur says, and Merlin splutters.

“ _Me_ stay safe, what are you—”

Arthur cuts him off with a kiss. Merlin rises onto his knees, stretching up into Arthur’s embrace, not entirely sure whether the urgency he feels is due solely to fear for Arthur’s safety or if a large portion of it is just the knowledge that Arthur is leaving for _weeks_ , and even if he does remain perfectly safe the whole time, Merlin will _miss_ him. By the time they pull away they’re both breathless, and regret is written all over Arthur’s face.

“I have to go,” he says. “The knights will be waiting.”

“Send word,” Merlin says. “Any sort of trouble at all, and I’ll come immediately—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Arthur says, and kisses him once more—hard and quick and searing—and then he’s gone.

 

It’s less a “matter of weeks” and more a “matter of months.” Arthur does send word, but the trouble he writes about is the mundane kind—rebuilding is going well, but rot got into the grain stocks, and the road flooded behind them, and it’s going to take longer than they all thought, and then longer still.

When Gwen runs into Gaius’ chambers and says breathlessly, “They’re coming!” it’s all Merlin can do not to drop the needle he’s holding and run. Instead he finishes sewing up his patient’s wound with careful, small stitches—ones that probably take him _longer_ than they would have otherwise, if he wasn’t having to take extra care to contain his excitement and anticipation—ties off the knot, snips off the extra thread, and _then_ he runs. “Thank you?” the man says, but Merlin’s already halfway up the stairs.

By the time he gets to the courtyard, it’s already full of knights and horses, red cloaks and chainmail, bustling movement and shouted greetings. Merlin cranes his neck, searching. Arthur should have been the first one in. Usually Merlin's eyes find him with the force of a magnet, no matter the crowd, a subtle kind of magic, but now he can’t see him _anywhere_. He tamps down the growing panic, knowing logically that if anything had happened, the knights would have sent word ahead, wouldn’t be laughing and grinning now, but then _where is he_? His gaze slides over Leon, over blond Sir Bors, over some knight he doesn’t know with golden hair and a beard one shade darker—

His eyes stutter and skip back. His brain short-circuits.

Arthur swings off his horse, handing the reins to a stableboy and giving the horse a goodbye pat on the neck. His gloved hand runs over the beard cloaking his chin, like a new, unconscious habit. His eyes find Merlin in the crowd—a subtle magic—and he grins.

“Hello again, Merlin,” he calls. “How’ve you been?”

Merlin doesn’t answer. He strides forward without conscious thought, stopping right in front of Arthur, eyes roaming over his face, his lips, his _beard_. Arthur with a _beard_.

“You don’t have to check that it’s him, I’ve done the smell test,” Gwaine says cheerfully.

“Could you tell him that he’s stolen my look, though?” Leon says. Gwaine snorts.

“Stolen and improved on, more like. You’re only jealous because it’s fuller than yours.”

“It’s fuller than yours, too.”

“I go for the scraggly look on _purpose_. Drives the girls wild. And some of the boys, too.”

“I could grow mine fuller if I wanted to too, you know. I like to keep it neat.”

“Arthur’s beard is neat.”

“Why are you defending His Highness’s beard all of a sudden?” Percival asks. “The whole trip you were making fun of it.”

“I’ve had a change of heart.”

“Merlin?” Arthur says, still wearing his kingly smile for the benefit of onlookers but sounding a bit uncertain now, perhaps because Merlin has been staring silently and up-close at him for more than a minute without saying anything. “Is everything all right?”

Gwaine coughs.

“I don’t think Merlin likes it,” mutters Leon. “What do you want to bet that he’s going to take Arthur upstairs and shave it off?”

“He’d have to hold Arthur down. He’s grown so attached to it.”

“Don’t pretend Merlin isn’t capable.”

“What are you talking about?” Gwaine says. “Merlin loves it. I think we all need to clear the square before we witness something positively indecent.”

“ _Merlin_ ,” Arthur says, and this time the strain is palpable, tone more urgent. There’s a hint of concern in his eyes. “People are staring.”

“Your Highness,” someone says, stepping forward, “your father would like to have dinner with you in private, to discuss the success of your mission.”

“Yes, of course,” Arthur says, looking away from Merlin with what seems like not a little effort. “Tell him I’ll be with him immediately. Merlin—”

But when he turns back, Merlin has already disappeared.

 

“Arthur’s got a _beard_!” Merlin says, bursting into Gaius’ chambers. Gwen is right behind him.

“I know!” she squeals. “I’d never have dreamed it in a million years. What do you think?”

“He looks—he looks—” Merlin searches helplessly for the appropriate adjective.

“Do you like beards?” Gwen frowns. “I don’t know what I’d do if Lancelot grew one. The stubble is scratchy enough.”

Merlin pauses in his hasty cleanup of the medical materials he’d left on the table. “Scratchy? Does it hurt?”

Gwen makes a face. “It can, a bit. It burns. Gaius actually gave me a salve—” She cuts herself off, blushing.

“Salve, salve,” Merlin mutters, abandoning the cleanup and turning to search the cabinets. “Could be useful—”

“Are you going to make him shave it off?”

“Aha!” Merlin crows, having found the salve in question on a low shelf below the worktable. He tries to straighten and hits his head on the table with a loud _crack_.

“Oh dear,” Gwen says, hurrying over and steadying him by the shoulders as he clutches the back of his head, wincing. “Let’s get you some ice, shall we?”

 

It’s late when Arthur finally returns to his chambers from his talk with his father. Merlin’s already banked the fire and dusted twice, plumping pillows that haven’t been slept on in months, a bundle of nervous energy.

Arthur sighs heavily, collapsing into a chair. “Well, that was exhausting,” he says, running his hands over his face. He looks up to find Merlin peering at him again, still with that same unreadable expression. “ _Mer_ lin,” he says, and that’s all the invitation Merlin needs—well, really, he hadn’t needed any, but he’s got one—to clamber onto his lap.

“Have you gone mute while I’ve been away?” Arthur asks, moving his jaw as little as possible, as Merlin strokes the beard experimentally, running his fingers through it like Arthur is a forest creature he’s examining for its pelt. It’s softer than he expected. It doesn’t feel like something that would burn. Arthur’s hand has settled possessively on his hip.

“You’ve grown a beard.”

“Oh, well spotted,” Arthur says dryly, head thumping against the back of the chair.

“Why?”

Arthur shrugs. “Seemed easier, I suppose. Saved me a chore, and we were all busy enough to drop, dawn to dusk. And it keeps me nice and warm. And—well—some of the people in the village seemed to like it. One woman— _older_ woman,” he adds hastily, “much older, but with the sauciness of a twenty-year-old minx—said it made me look mature. Wise. Kingly. You know. Not that I—well. I started to like it myself, is all.”

He swallows, and Merlin watches the bob of his Adam’s apple. The beard fades gradually down Arthur’s neck, he observes.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, and Merlin can feel the rumble of it where his fingers are pressed against Arthur’s throat. The self-consciousness in Arthur’s tone is impossible to miss. “For Christ’s sake, just tell me whether you _like_ it—”

Merlin cuts him off with a kiss. Heated, passionate, filthy within seconds.

“I like it,” he says against Arthur’s lips. Arthur breathes out, hot on Merlin’s face, and his hand clenches tighter on Merlin’s hip, involuntary.

Arthur chuckles, a little strained, like he’s trying to be amused but can’t quite manage it through the lust. “Couldn’t have said that straight away, could you?”

Merlin presses his lips to Arthur’s Adam’s apple, scrapes his teeth over the short hairs there. He sucks at the corner of Arthur’s jaw, just below his ear. He brushes his nose through the hair on Arthur's cheek, against the grain, and mouths his way across the beard’s border from ear to the corner of Arthur's lips. “I _really_ like it,” he whispers, and Arthur growls and turns his head to capture Merlin’s lips with his, hot and fierce and _immediately_ filthy.

It _does_ scratch, as it turns out, but it also turns out that Merlin _loves_ that about it. He thinks about the possibility that his face tomorrow will be rubbed raw and red, thinks about the possibility that _other_ sensitive places will also be—his neck, his chest and stomach, his inner thighs—and feels himself getting instantly harder. He’s still kissing Arthur _now_ , but part of his brain is already making plans for all the additional kissing they’ll have to do in the future—never mind being careful, never mind trying not to get caught; Merlin can’t imagine passing Arthur in a corridor and _not_ finding some secluded alcove to shove him into.

It also tickles—more than it scratches, for the most part—and if Merlin weren’t so incredibly turned on, he might just want to rub against Arthur’s face like a cat. Maybe after. He has _plans_ for this beard.

He pulls back, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur says, ragged.

“Nothing, it’s just—” Merlin strokes the beard, already picking up the unconscious habit himself. “I _do_ love it, but I also like you clean-shaven. I’ll start missing the sight of your upper lip. And the smoothness of your cheeks.”

Arthur snorts. “How about we compromise, then?” he says, taking Merlin’s hand and threading their fingers together, pressing a kiss to each knuckle. “I’ll wear the beard through winter, and shave it off come spring. It’s a practical solution.”

“Six months on, six months off,” Merlin muses. “Like Persephone in the Underworld.”

Arthur’s brow creases. “Who?”

“Never mind,” Merlin says. “I think that’s a fine solution.” He grins, and Arthur grins back.

“In the meantime…” Arthur begins, and Merlin finishes the thought with another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I love love love love comments. ♥ Also, come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://ladililn.tumblr.com/)! I'm in desperate need of Tumblr Friends.


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